A Christmas Wish

Like most yuppies, my husband and I have a busy holiday season.

There are parties to attend and to host, gifts to purchase and wrap, food to make and chocolate confection to create.  Some things, well intentioned, always seem to fall by the wayside – like sending out Christmas cards.  Every year I intend to do it, and every year it somehow falls behind.  I open all the beautiful ones I receive with a mixed emotion of guilt and happiness to be remembered by so many.

It’s easy to fall into a trap of thinking: “Ugh, I’m so busy.  I’m so stressed.  I wish I could just sit and relax and have nothing to do!”

My husband says this to me almost every weekend as we run through our weekly regimen of home maintenance, family errands and social activities.

Me, I always think about the people who genuinely have nothing to do.  Not on the weekends, and not at Christmastime either.  Think about the reality of waking and having this day, and every day stretch before you without a job expecting you, or friends asking for your time, or family inviting you to dinner.

I’ve made choices and I do not regret them but I’m realistic about where they will lead.  I’m married to a man who is fifteen years older than me, I am blessed with one child through my marriage but opted not to give birth to any.  I’ve always said that however many years of spectacular I have with Ted is worth more than a longer span with any other man closer to my age.  He is my soul mate, and I’m filled with gratitude for every moment we have together on this world.

However, I know how likely it is that if I live as long as my grandmothers did, the end of my life is probably going to be lonely.

When that time comes I will have treasured up years upon years filled to the brim with friends and family and a holiday schedule so busy that I barely had time to sleep.  I run around during the holidays and know that this year there are people for whom Christmas Eve is any other Eve, and Christmas Day any other Day – because what makes a holiday but the people with whom we share it?

I’m so grateful for my stressful, busy holiday and however many of them stretch ahead of me as the years of our life together fly by.  I am warm in the knowledge that right now is the time of my life that I will look back on one day with such joy.  I won’t remember being tired on my feet while standing over a pot of melted chocolate – I’ll remember how happy someone made me when they tasted the results and dubbed it: “magnificent”.

My wish for you this season is for your life to be busy and full, abundant with the people who will make it special for you, and for whom you made it so special.

Merry Christmas, and God Bless!

Totally Office Party

Every place of employment has its good and bad qualities.  One of the good ones about mine is a thorough enjoyment of the holiday season.  We had two office parties this year; the first was catered for us by the wife of the owner who is a very, VERY good cook.  The second was today, a pot luck affair, and my fellow employees are no slouch in the culinary department either.

I made hot baked artichoke dip.  Very easy, very good, very bad for you.

Hot ‘Choke Dip

Drain and dice two cans of artichoke hearts

Add 1 & ¼ cups of mayonnaise

Add 5 oz. of small crumbled parmesan cheese

Mix, spread in the bottom of a baking dish, and bake at 375 for about twenty minutes or until it bubbles and makes your house smell amazing.  Eat with crackers.  Try to share, it’s a bit like crack – once you get a bite you kind of keep thinking about it.

In addition to all the office partying they also exchange gifts.  I’m not all that into gifts so the first time people started giving them to me I was a little mortified.  Over the years, I’ve adapted so that now I just make home made chocolates for everyone.  People are impressed by them and they always get eaten so it seems to work out well.

The whole season is, of course, a complete cataclysm for anybody who is trying to loose (or just not gain) weight.  In addition to the parties we’ve got customers and distributors constantly dropping off pretzels, cookies, chocolates (I’m guilty of course of contributing to that one), etc.  There’s one company that sends us fresh Florida oranges too, those are really popular.

We’ve got a number of folks who are attempting or have successfully managed to sacrifice their fat on the altar of Weight Watchers, so there’s always a fair amount of food related anxiety to go along with our merriment.

People speak in ‘point value’ for pretty much everything edible, if you didn’t know what was going on you’d think we were all playing some kind of food related RPG in the office.

I don’t mind Weight Watchers – as they go I think it’s a decent enough program since they encourage people to eat real food in the real world rather than salt pickled substances from boxes and cans.  I think I can say with definition though that their program does not, in fact, work for me personally.  I’ve been on and off WW at least ten times since the age of fourteen.  Each time I fail, the rebound weight gain has probably been worth another ten extra pounds so.  Ten WW fails in a lifetime, ten pounds each, well… you do the math.

Tips From Ted

I've had very little to say of late on weight loss that doesn't involve irritated profanity.  So, for the sake of decorum, today I bring you a tip from Ted.

When faced with a spouse bearing a painful ankle injury such as a grade 3 ankle sprain suffered the week before Thanksgiving, ice becomes an important part of one's life.  Driving through rush hour traffic at the end of the day for example can result in an ankle roughly two to three sizes larger than normal.

To deal with this situation, Ted came up with the following ankle injury icing tip that works quite efficiently.  You will need:

One damaged foot...

Complete with protective sock

Two bags of ice...

In small cube form

One bucket, thoroughly washed...

Stolen from faithful house cat (he was done with it)

Insert foot of spouse into bucket, pack ice all around injury.  It works really well because the ice is kept forced into close contact with the entire circumference of the injury (which does expand all the way around the ankle, I was thorough when I fell down).

After two twenty minute sessions with an hour long warming break in between, my ankle goes back to the size which can currently be considered 'normal' for it, although I'm beginning to suspect that it and my left ankle will never really match again.  It hurts less afterward too.

Probably a better idea though, if you can manage it, is to just not fall down like a big dumb klutz in the first place.

This tip has been brought to you by the letter "T" and the number "52"

Healthy Holidays!

 

The holdays are coming, and with them the cataclysm that we like to call holiday eating, or way over eating in my case.

This picture was posted on facebook by my sweet friend Amanda, and it's a wonderful reminder that you don't need to pack in calories (and pounds) or forget about nutrition to have a festive season.

So has everybody started shopping yet?  I actually have, which is odd for me - I'm usually one of those last minute, OHNOIT'SDECEMBER! types...

(Reposted from "Skinny Crockpot" and "Putting on a Party" via Facebook)

Don’t Touch It, Its Evil!

Offices really are a veritable cornucopia of blog fodder.  It’s like a little microcosm civilization for me to analyze and research on a daily basis.

This week generated further adventures involving my small talk disability:

“You’re eating pizza.”

And also…

“You’re in here by yourself.”

Both of these examples happened while I was, in fact, alone in the lunchroom eating a slice of homemade pizza and reading a book.  Both times my instinct dictated that I respond to these comments with, “I know.”  I consider the fact that I stifled this response and merely smiled in both cases to be progress.

Today when I entered the lunchroom it was stuffed full of treats from Dunkin Donuts.  I don’t personally find their donuts to be very tasty (they’re a bit dry) so I didn’t have much trouble ignoring them.

However, as I sat there eating my corn masa enchilada with salsa verde and Spanish whole grain rice, no less than three people came in, gasped in horror over the donuts and cursed whoever had brought them in for us.  All the while they were either being examined or in some cases eaten they were proclaimed to be: “bad”, “evil”, etc.

It occurred to me that food is not good or bad really, it’s all just fuel.  Some fuel is more efficient than others and what foods are the most efficient for the particular biomechanical device that is your body will vary slightly from person to person.  My husband, for example, can run very efficiently on cheese steak with no apparent ill effects while I cannot.

I imagine it’s a bit like being different types of cars that run better on varying octane gasoline.

My point is the whole time you’re making a HUGE deal over a treat you want and calling it bad bad bad, you’re simply reinforcing the idea that you shouldn’t and couldn’t have it while thinking about it constantly.

You’re creating an obsession.

You’re setting yourself up to eventually gorge on the aforementioned treat when you can no longer stand the torture of denying yourself the thing you’ve decided you want so badly but can’t have because it’s eeeevvillle…

Stop it.

When you consider a food that you know is inefficient fuel, think about it briefly and whether or not you really want it or if the sight is just causing a momentary sugar / fat / salt craving.  Ask yourself if you’re even really hungry right now, chances are you’re not and the moment the fuel is out of sight you’ll stop thinking about it anyway.

And if you decide that you really do want a donut?  Eat it.  Move on.  Life’s too short.

I really want a donut plushie.

Well Now

The company where I work gives us a break on our health insurance costs if we sign up for their health assistance program which is run by a company called Well Now.  Being of the frugal sort, I signed up.

They came to the office, drew blood, measured blood pressure, height, weight and then gave us a school type grade on our fitness level.  Despite all my scores coming back within their proper range for a female of my age and height – I scored a “C” based solely on my weight, it was enough to drag me down that far.

Both I and my personal physician thought this was a little unfair, but that’s beside the point.

One of the benefits of the program we receive is a by-monthly meeting with our own personal healthcare consultant.

The first one they assigned to me quit.  I swear I wasn’t trying to scare her away, but about five minutes into our conversation both she and I realized she knew about a tenth as much about nutrition as I did.  The next month a new lady called and said the first one had quit the company.

And yes, I feel a little guilty for it.

At any rate the second lady is a very nice woman named Deborah who is both more knowledgeable and has some health street cred since she has lost and kept off a little over 80 pounds herself.

A few things about our conversation today were interesting…

One thing she praised me for was the fact that I have quit following any of the prefabricated American “diets” any longer.  She and I were both in agreement that over my lifetime of restrictions and rules, I’ve probably caused most of my weight gain in trying and failing at them repeatedly.  This is not a new belief to me, but I was pleased that she shared my idea that a “diet” should simply refer to what you eat, not what you’re paying someone to tell you not to eat.

She also acknowledges that my understanding of nutrition is way above and beyond that of the average bear – and in her opinion I have everything going for me to be able to achieve my goals.  She also said it’s all right if my goal is just to like the way I look more, but for long term health purposes less weight on the skeleton would also be beneficial.

So what did she want me to do?

She advocates little changes.

A good example would be giving up sugared soda.  That’s not a valid one for me because I’ve never drank sugared soda to begin with, but you get the idea.  She asked me to come up with some of these little changes I could put into practice right now, and see what happens between now and the next time I talk to her.

I admit, my motivation has been at an all time low recently.  Two years into health blogging and I have zero weight loss to show for it.  My skin is pretty and my cholesterol is good – but looking into a mirror and seeing pictures of myself is still just as painful as ever.

Another thing Deborah strongly suggested is loving my body right now.  Ted is going to love this one too because he’s long insisted that the obstacle between me and my goals is the fact that I kind of hate myself a bit.  My response to this is that it’s kind of like telling a single person: “oh just stop looking for a partner, and then you’ll find one!”  How the crap am I supposed to stop wanting it?

At any rate, I promised her I’d come up with a few things, some regarding mental health and some physical.  Here they are:

1)      No snack meals.  Sometimes when I get home from work and I’m eating alone because nobody else is around, I’ll just eat snacks until I’m full rather than prepare a proper meal for myself.  They’re never healthy, contain too many calories and almost always make me feel like crap.  I’m cutting this grazing behavior out.

2)      No abusing of me.  At least, not out loud (I can’t help what goes through my head sometimes).  Remember to thank God daily for a body that can do whatever I want it to because it’s not paralyzed, sick, weak or missing anything.  I should be very, very grateful for that.  Every day.

3)      No liquid calories.  I already don’t drink soda but I do put sugar in my coffee and tea and sometimes I have milk.  All of those need to go.  And before anybody jumps down my throat about the milk may I remind you that it’s baby food – I’m an adult animal, I do NOT need it.

4)      Write every day.  I’ve been slacking off on this and it really does effect my mental health and productivity profoundly.  Doesn’t have to be a blog post but I’ve got to get SOMETHING out of my head and into print daily so my skills don’t atrophy.  I’ve found myself staring at fiction pieces lately with a low, dull tone droning through my head instead of flowing words – and that’s not good.

That’s it for now.  Somewhere I’ve gotta find my lost motivation and I’m hoping this helps.

MJ

It didn’t really hit me when Michael Jackson died.  It washed over me, registering with a vague sense of sadness and no shock whatsoever.  It even took me a long time to figure out why.

I finally realized it’s because I’d already finished mourning for him over a decade before he died.

He was one of my first crushes ever.  In recent years people would look at me like I was crazy when I said I used to be obsessed with him, but that’s because they’re forgetting the boy I fell in love with when I was twelve.  This boy:

The boy with the ready smile and bright eyes.  The playful clown, the dreamer, the dancer, the absolutely incomparably brilliant artist.

The man who would earn, loose and give away a fortune to others over the course of his lifetime, desperately trying to heal the world when he couldn’t heal himself.

And no, I don’t believe that he ever hurt anyone.  I don’t think he could.  I do think he never grew up, was never able to, and never became able to cope with the world.  He never had normal.  How exactly can someone be expected to relate the same way everyone else does when they never for one second got to live like anybody else?

Over time he turned into something that was painful for me to look at.  I don’t know if it was a physical or mental malady that caused it – I don’t really care, I just couldn’t bear to see him anymore and I missed the boy I loved as a child.  I never, ever stopped listening to him though.  I never will.